A Masterpiece!
There have been many films about the aftermath of war, but never have I seen such a brutally honest and shocking depiction of the de-humanization of soldiers back from war. This is the underlying premise of the new crime thriller from academy award winning writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash).
Hank Deerfield (played by Tommy Lee Jones) is a retired veteran and military police officer searching for his son who has gone AWOL. A detective Emily Sanders (played by Charlize Theron) becomes interested in the case and starts helping Hank outside of her job. When Hank's son's body is found, the search suddenly turns into a search for the murderer.
One of the many aspects I appreciated was that director Haggis did not turn this into a typical Hollywood crime thriller and also not turn it into a political propaganda piece against the war and President Bush. Instead he mixes the two plots together seamless and subtle, letting you decide for your self.
Tommy Lee...
A Theron tour de force
First of all, I have no idea why this movie was panned or lauded during its theatrical release as some kind of statement for or against the Iraq war. After having watched it, the political ramifications of that war are, in my opinion, totally irrelevant to this movie as a work of entertainment. There have been atrocities in every war since tribes were clubbing each other with mastodon bones, so let's just put that aside.
Having been raised in the military as an Army brat -- and being a veteran myself -- I really love movies oriented toward military subjects, and this movie doesn't disappoint. In many ways, it's territory we've explored before in movies such as "The Caine Mutiny", "A Few Good Men", "Basic", "The General's Daughter", "Rules of Engagement" (another Jones movie), and many others. Why this one was castigated as being anti-war in any special way is totally beyond me.
We have a stellar cast in what is essentially a "Courage Under Fire" genre movie, a...
The rest of the story
Much has been made of the fact that this movie is based on a true story, the 2003 murder of Richard Davis, a story chronicled by Mark Boal in an extensive magazine article, "Death and Dishonor," that appeared in the May 2004 issue of Playboy (an article that can be found online and that is far more thought-provoking than this film). Some reviews go so far as to say that the film hews closely to the story reported by Boal, but the truth is otherwise. (The film opens with the statement that it was "inspired by actual incidents" - a statement that usually heralds significant dramatic license.) Indeed, of adapting his story for the screen, Mr. Boal, who shares writing credits for the story with director Paul Haggis (Mr. Haggis alone is credited with the screenplay), had this to say: "It's a fictional piece [the film], and so at various junctures Paul [Haggis] and I thought we should change Lanny's story to make it feel more universal." The Lanny to which Mr. Boal refers is Lanny Davis,...
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